“Now look,” Mistress Martinet said, frowning. “I’ll retract the needle for now, at least.” She pressed another button and the long, silver needle slid soundlessly back into its phallic sheath. “It won’t come out again until the tip of the insemination phallus is right against your cervix,” she promised.
This did little to calm Lilli down. Mistress Martinet was simply telling her she would be stabbed later on, rather than right away. It didn’t really matter because either way, she was going to get stabbed—and in a terribly sensitive place, too!
“No!” she moaned as the thick silver probe began moving towards her unprotected pussy. “No, please!”
Outside the plastiglass barrier, she could see Karn shouting and pounding on the glass. But it was too strong. She couldn’t even hear him through it, let alone see any cracks in the impenetrable shield between them.
When his fists didn’t work, the big Kindred reached for the metal chair he’d been sitting in. Lifting it over his head, he swung it as hard as he could against the plastiglass.
The chair bounced off harmlessly—though it did leave a small crack in the barrier, Lilli saw hopefully.
Mistress Martinet saw it too.
“That’s enough of that!” she exclaimed. Reaching around Lilli’s neck, she snatched off the chain which held the remote to Karn’s pain collar.
“No!” Lilli gasped in horror as she turned and pointed it at the big Kindred.
“I’ve had enough of this,” Mistress Martinet said through clenched teeth. She shot Karn a triumphant look and pressed the big red “pain” button on the remote as hard as she could.
Nothing happened.
Well, nothing but Karn picking up the other chair and hurling it at the plastiglass barrier as well.
“What’s wrong with this thing?” Mistress Martinet jammed her finger down on the button again and again, still with no results. Karn kept raging, shouting so loudly that Lilli could hear him, even through the soundproof plastiglass.
“Hurt my Mistress and I’ll fucking kill you!” he was shouting. His mismatched eyes had gone a blazing, blood-red.
Lilli was hopeful that Mistress Martinet might think she needed to stop the insemination procedure due to Karn’s attack on the plastiglass. But when the small crack he had first made didn’t grow any bigger—no matter how many times he slammed the chair against it—she appeared to decide to get back to business.
“Now, just hold still and it will be over before you know it,” she said to Lilli, pressing another button.
This caused the long metal arm—which had frozen in midair for a moment—to start moving again. It snaked towards Lilli, the thick metallic phallus at its end glimmering ominously in the bright overhead lights.
Lilli shifted her hips from side to side, trying to avoid the damn thing. But the metallic arm moved in a snake-like fashion, anticipating her moves and finding her entrance anyway.
“No!” she moaned as the ice-cold tip of the phallus probed at the mouth of her pussy. “No, I don’t want this!”
“Just hold still,” Mistress Martinet told her, through gritted teeth. “Honestly, your mother is not paying me enough! I’ve never had such a troublesome client—never.”
“Please!” Lilli begged as the phallus began forcing its way inside her. It was horribly thick and freezing cold, just as she had been warned. If she hadn’t been making love with Karn so much in the past week, it never would have gotten inside her. As it was, the awful thing was still a tight fit. Maybe because it was completely dry and all of Lilli’s own natural lubrication had dried up—possibly with fear.
“Please!” she begged, her inner muscles clenching in protest as the blunt silver probe nosed its way inside her. “Please! Karn!”
“Your bodyslave can’t help you now,” Mistress Martinet snapped. “And if you don’t stop shifting your hips around, the insemination needle is going to stab you in the wrong place. So be still!”
Lilli tried but it was as if her body had a mind of its own. Her hips kept twitching and her thighs kept trying to close as her inner muscles tried desperately to expel the invader. But it was no use—before she knew it, the ice-cold tip of the metallic phallus was all the way inside her, pressing against the mouth of her womb.
Finally, Lilli froze.
Oh no! she thought, squeezing her eyes shut and clenching her fists on the padded arms of the chair in awful anticipation. Now it’s going to stab me! Oh Goddess, I wonder how much it’s going to hurt? And how long is it going to take? How long is the needle going to be inside me? What am I going to do?
But instead of stabbing her, the snaky, metallic arm of the insemination bot suddenly stopped moving. The bot beeped loudly and then said, in a tinny, robotic voice,
“Insemination impossible.”
“What?” Mistress Martinet glared at it. “What are you talking about?”
“Insemination impossible,” the bot said again. And to Lilli’s immense relief, the metallic phallus began to withdraw.
“Oh, thank the Goddess!” she sobbed as it slowly slid out of her.
But Mistress Martinet wasn’t ready to concede defeat.
“Damn it, do your job!” she snarled at the Insemination bot, mashing down on the buttons again.
But the Insemination bot did not respond. It just kept withdrawing slowly but surely from Lilli’s channel.
“Why, then?” Mistress Mirabella demanded desperately. “Give an explanation for your behavior, bot! Why are you not impregnating Mistress Lilliana?”
The bot beeped and said in a metallic voice, “Insemination is impossible because insemination and impregnation have already been achieved.”
“What?” cried Mistress Martinet and Lilli at the same time. And Mistress Martinet said, “That’s impossible! She can’t be pregnant already!”
“Affirmative,” the bot proclaimed. “Subject is impregnated.” It paused for a moment, and then beeped again. “The fetus she is carrying is male.”
Forty-One
Lilli felt numb as the metallic phallus withdrew on the end of its long, snaky arm and the thick straps released her arms and legs. How could she already be pregnant? And how could the baby be male? Unless…
She looked through the plastiglass barrier where Karn was standing there, still panting with rage. His eyes weren’t as red and he had stopped throwing chairs now that the phallus had withdrawn from her, but there was still tension in his broad shoulders and his big hands were clenched into fists at his sides.
Could it be that he had impregnated her?
But he told me it was impossible! He promised he couldn’t make me pregnant without bonding me to him and he said that Hybrids can’t bond, Lilli thought wildly. How could this happen? How could Karn have lied to her so blatantly?
“Here. Put on your panties,” Mistress Martinet said coldly. She was looking at Lilli as though she was nothing but scum on the sidewalk. “You aren’t fit to be in a conception center where good, honest Mistresses come to get a legitimate heir after what you’ve done.”
“After what I’ve done?” Lilli asked blankly. “What…what are you talking about?”
“You know good and well what I’m talking about,” Mistress Martinet snapped. “You’ve been inseminated and impregnated already and the child is male. There’s no way that could happen unless you let a male penetrate you!”
“But…but aren’t there mistakes sometimes at the conception center?” Lilli faltered.
“Not for years—not since they got their new sperm sorting software upgrade,” Mistress Martinet said nastily. “But I know perfectly well you’ve never been to a conception center before—your name wasn’t in the system until your mother made your appointment earlier this week.”
“But—” Lilli started.
“And I can tell by the way that bodyslave of yours acts towards you that he’s the father,” Mistress Martinet went on relentlessly. “Calling you ‘baby’ and acting so possessive and overprotective—all the hallma
rks of a male who has sunk his sexual claws into a female! Not to mention sunk his shaft into her,” she went on, rather crudely, Lilli thought.
But crude or not, she was absolutely right about Karn.
The thing Lilli couldn’t understand was how she herself could have been so wrong about him.
How could he lie to me like this? she wondered numbly as she waited for Mistress Martinet to unseal the plastiglass door and let them out. How could he say he couldn’t get me pregnant and do this to me? How could he say he loved me and then act this way?
What was she going to tell her mother?
“Baby!” Karn rushed to her the moment she came out of the plastiglass insemination chamber. He took her by the shoulders. “Are you all right?”
Lilli shook off his hands and looked up at him.
“How could you, Karn?
“How could I what?” He looked at her with confusion in his mismatched eyes and she realized he hadn’t been able to hear anything that was said on the other side of the plastiglass.
“How could you penetrate your Mistress and make her pregnant? You disgusting male.” Mistress Martinet looked at him with utter loathing. She raised the pain collar remote, which she was still holding, and pointed it directly at him while pushing the button.
Nothing happened.
“What is wrong with this?” Mistress Martinet shook the remote. “I thought the plastiglass barrier was blocking the signal but it still isn’t working!”
Karn ignored her.
“Lilli,” he said urgently. “What are you talking about? What did that thing do to you?”
“The insemination bot didn’t do anything—well, it didn’t make me pregnant, anyway.” Lilli looked up at him, tears stinging her eyes. “Because you already did that. You made me pregnant even though you said you couldn’t. And everyone is going to know because the baby is a male.”
“No one is going to know.”
The new voice from the doorway was horribly familiar.
Looking around, Lilli saw her mother standing there. And she was pointing a blaster straight at Karn’s chest.
Forty-Two
“Whoa, hang on there. Let’s just think this through.” Karn put up his hands at once in a “don’t shoot” gesture. “Mistress Mirabella—”
“Don’t speak to me, bodyslave.” Her voice was like ice but she was looking at Lilli, not him. “So you’ve disgraced me yet again—and in the worst way possible,” she said. “How could you do this to me, Lilliana? Do you know how difficult this is going to be to keep quiet?”
“Mother!” Lilli put a hand to her throat nervously. “How…why are you here?”
“I’m here because I got a very damning vid message on my personal communications device about an hour ago,” her mother snapped. “It was from Priss Tempertant and it showed you and that…that Kindred…” She waved the blaster at Karn. “In the middle of an unnamable activity!”
Lilli went white and Karn felt a growl rise in his throat. No wonder that little bitch, Priss, had insisted on making him penetrate Lilli! She’d been filming the whole thing! And no doubt she had edited out herself and all the rest of her group, leaving Lilli and himself as the only ones engaged in the illicit activity.
“Mother—” Lilli started but Mistress Mirabella shook her head.
“I don’t want to hear a word. You’re coming with me. And you,” she added, looking directly at Karn for the first time, “Are going straight to the Diluthian mines!”
“What?” Lilli looked at him in shock. “But, Mother, you can’t—”
“Oh yes I can!” Mistress Mirabella said grimly. “Give me the remote to his pain collar!”
“It doesn’t work,” Mistress Martinet said, speaking up for the first time since Lilli’s mother had come into the room. “I’ve tried it twice since your daughter and her bodyslave got here. He is completely out of control.”
“I’ll speak with you later,” Mistress Mirabella snapped at her. “Just keep all this to yourself and you’ll be compensated accordingly. But if you breathe a word of this to anyone…” She turned a menacing glare on the other woman which caused Mistress Martinet to blanch.
“I understand,” she said quickly. “Not a word, Lady Mirabella—I swear it.”
“Good. Now get out.” Mistress Mirabella jerked her chin at the door.
While her attention was momentarily distracted with the other Mistress, Karn decided to act. This looked like the only chance he was going to get. As Mistress Martinet headed for the doorway, he lunged for the blaster.
“Not so fast!” Mistress Mirabella jerked away before he could grab the weapon and threw a handful of small, metal beads at him. They stung when they hit him but they didn’t bounce off, as he would have expected. Instead, they began to flatten out and grow at the same time. Almost before he could blink, they had covered his entire body in a series of interconnected metal plates.
“What the fuck?” Karn growled, looking down at himself. He tried to pry one of the silver plates free, but his arms were already immobilized by the metal holding him in place. In fact, he realized with growing concern, his entire body was immobilized. Except for his face, he was completely encased in the interlocking metal plates—and it had taken less than three seconds!
“I thought I might have some problems with you, Kindred,” Mistress Mirabella snapped, glaring at him. “And since you’d seduced my daughter, I surmised that she might have disabled your pain collar. I’m not surprised to see that I was right—it’s a good thing I brought the Obedience Skin with me.”
“Obedience Skin?” Karn frowned. “What the fuck is that? These metal plates all over me?”
“Exactly. The metal plates which now control how your muscles can and will move—according to what I say,” Mistress Mirabella snapped. “Now come with me—we’re getting out of here before anyone else enters the conception center and sees us.”
To his horror, Karn found his legs obeying her orders. Though he wanted to protest, he found that the metal plates around his limbs moved his arms and legs whether he wanted to move them or not. It didn’t do any good to fight them, either—it was like fighting with a plastisteel wall. The smart metal of the Obedience Skin just kept going, even when he tried to stop it.
He felt fucking horrible as he walked unwillingly behind Lilli and her mother. Lilli’s head was down, her shoulders shaking with silent sobs. Could what she said be true? Could she actually be pregnant with his child? With his son?
The thought made his heart soar and plummet at the same time. Deep down, he’d always wanted a mate and a son—a family like other Kindred warriors had. But he’d never admitted it to himself because he thought it was impossible. Now it had proved to be not only possible but a reality—he had gotten the woman he loved pregnant!
But in doing so, he had betrayed her in the worst way possible.
“How could you, Lilliana?” her mother demanded as she stalked stiffly down the corridor. “How could you degrade and debase yourself so far as to let a male penetrate you?”
Lilli’s reply tore at Karn’s heart.
“He…he said he loved me,” she whispered in a broken voice. “And he claimed he couldn’t…couldn’t get me pregnant!”
“I didn’t think I could!” Karn protested. “Lilli, please—I would never—“
“Silence!” Mistress Mirabella made a gesture at him and suddenly one of the thin metal plates grew over his mouth.
“Mmmph! Mmmph!” Karn protested, but he couldn’t get another word out—not a single one.
“That’s better,” Mistress Mirabella snapped as they stepped out of the conception center. “You can rant and rave all you want once you get to the Diluthian mines but you’ll not say a single word more to my daughter!”
She nodded at the curb, where two different transports were waiting. One was the fancy, sleek, silver one they had driven in on the way to Opulex earlier that day. The other was an ominous dull black and it had guards waiting outside o
f it, holding heavy-duty stunners and pain prods.
“What are you doing out of your transport?” Mistress Mirabella hissed at them. “Do you want everyone to talk?”
“Sssory, Mistresss,” one of them hissed and Karn saw they were Horvaths—green, scaly, lizard-like humanoids which the Yonnites often used for distasteful duties they didn’t want to undertake themselves.
Like transporting prisoners to the Diluthian mines, apparently, whispered a little voice in his head. How long do you think you’re going to last there, Karn? Probably not more than a week.
But it wasn’t the thought of going to the mines that upset him the most—even though it would certainly mean his death. No, what was killing him was that Lilli thought he had betrayed her and hurt her on purpose.
I love you! he wanted to shout, but there was no way with the damn metal plate practically welded to his mouth.
“We thought he might possse a danger to you, Mistresss,” the other Horvath guard hissed, breaking his miserable train of thought.
“I can take care of myself. I came prepared, as you can see,” Mistress Mirabella snapped.
“I sssee.” The first guard sounded impressed. “I didn’t know a fine lady such asss yourself had accesss to an Obedienssse Sssskin.”
“I have access to anything I want,” Mistress Mirabella said shortly. “Except an heir I can be proud of,” she added, glaring at Lilli.
“I’m sorry, Mother. So sorry.” The words were a low sob and they twisted Karn’s heart. “I…I thought he loved me,” she whispered again.
I do! he wanted desperately to shout, but of course he couldn’t. He could only stare at her, hoping she would lift her head and meet his eyes.
“You little fool!” Her mother sounded both disgusted and exasperated. “This is one reason I wanted you to have a quick-grow heir! I thought if she grew fast enough, I might be able to replace you with someone who actually had a decent head for business on her shoulders. But I never dreamed you’d do something like this!
Lilli absorbed her words like a physical blow, her steps staggering for a moment as though her mother had actually struck her. Karn felt a murderous rage sing through his veins. If only he could get out of this damn metal plating, he would show Lilli’s mother exactly how much she had hurt her daughter. He would—
Protecting His Mistress...Book 24 in the Kindred Tales Series Page 21